Iris setosa subsp. setosa
 
FamilyIridaceae — APG family: Iridaceae
SynonymsIris sibirica, Iris arctica Eastw.
Common namewild flag
DescriptionRootstock short, thick, covered with fibrous remains of disintegrated leaves; stem mostly with 1-2 branches; bracts herbaceous, green or somewhat purplish, as long as pedicels or longer; sepals blue with dark veins (rarely purplish or white), broad, abruptly contracted into short claw; petals small, up to 2 cm long, with narrow blade, abruptly contracted into lanceolate, acute or subulate tip; capsule ovate, obtusely angled. Poisonous, causes vomiting.
EcologyMeadows, shores. Described from eastern Siberia.
Taxonomy
notes
The form of the petals varies considerably; specimens with dilated, somewhat acute or even obtuse petals occur (var. platyrhyncha Hult.). The eastern North American counterpart to this plant is I. Hookeri Penny, often regarded as a race of 1. setosa; its range is indicated by the broken line on the circumpolar map.
Hultén's Flora About

This is a digital representation of Eric Hultén’s ‘Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants’, which was published by Stanford University Press in 1968. The book was digitized by C. Webb (at UAMN) as part of the Flora of Alaska project, with funding by the US NSF (Grant 1759964 to Ickert-Bond & Webb), and with permission of Stanford University Press. Data and images © 1968 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. Usage licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. NB: You may find OCR errors; please refer to the hard-copy if in doubt.